Canute

Very true, Lou. The coming back to this hobby happens a lot. My club has 100 members, more or less. The majority are returners with some skills; mainly guys who have gotten into trains now as they retire, since they may have had trains when they were kids (50 years ago). That's what they say, Scout's honor. The long time model rails, like me, came up with a mentoring program for the new guys to get them up to speed in the club. But one thing it doesn't include is building stuff. A lot of guys are intimidated with assembling a kit. We see that at our local train shows here in western NC. Put a plastic kit, in it's box of parts on a table to sell and it gets looked at and passed over. Put the same kit, already built up, out and it get snapped up. People don't want to spend time building or they are afraid to fail. I keep telling them to try it, they might enjoy creating something to show off their own work. 🤯 And then there is a handful of us who actually scratch build and kitbash stuff. We call ourselves the "Dark Side" or the Jedis. I consider myself a padawan in that area.

There has been a national organization setting industry standards across the scales since 1935. Meaning if you buy something in HO scale, it won't matter whose gear you use. This applies to locos & rolling stock and portions of the digital command control systems we use. Guys are even working in "dead rail", where the locos run on batteries and follow radio signals. Our current live rail systems need track power for the "choo-choos" to work, but still work off radio signals. I can run trains via an app on my smart phone. And like most "hands on" craft hobbies we fret over the aging of the craftsmen and women and will the youngsters pick up the hobby. My club tries to help there by having in a small group of 10-15 year olds for some "training" once a month. Most move on as they find other pursuits or go to college, but we do snag one or two. And who knows, maybe after a number of years these kids come back to the hobby.

Jack is correct about the homasote. It's a paper product, sold as a sound deadening material. It's easy to spike to, but if sawing with power tools, it does make a lot of dust. Recommend doing that outside. Get the lumber yard to cut it to the same size as your plywood pieces. Denis, model railroading is one of the bigger "rabbit holes" you can fall into. Good luck in this hobby area.

Denis, if all you want to do is have something for the grandkids to play with, you don't need to get this deep into making cars like these. They have some nice starter sets with cars, an engine, track and a power pack. Pick up a track planning book to figure out how you want to lay out the track, especially if the set doesn't include one. You should fasten the track down if you get an HO or N scale set. Track tends to move with a lot of activity around it. I'd glue it down. if you expect to leave it set up on a sheet of plywood or foam board. There are a few other model rails on this site, so they may chime in with additional info. Bigger scales (S, 1/64, or American Flyer, pretty rare as a train set these days) or Lionel (O or 1/48 scale) don't need to be fastened down, but I'd put them on a plywood or foam sheet. Keeps the carpet gunk from getting up into the mechanism. I think the newer sets also come with knuckle couplers on everything. They look like miniatures of real couplers. If you buy used, no telling what you will find. That depends on the age. We got a donation recently at the club with metal sided HO cars with knuckle couplers. Very old stuff. Some newer all plastic stuff had couplers called x2f. They do not look like any coupler I've ever seen in real life, but a lot of cars from the 60s thru 90s had those couplers. They were cheap to make.

Denis, it is an unusual car. It is a box car, but they added hatches to enable loading of the phosphate. Cars were unloaded thru the side doors. There are 2 spots at the bottom of the door that look like mail slots. They are fittings for a fork lift operator to force the door open for removing the phosphate. Why these cars were built new in the mid/late 60s looking like boxcars, I don't know. Kit instructions don't spell it out. The RR that I primarily model switched to covered hoppers like you are thinking of, in the 40s. They hauled cement from a limestone belt in eastern PA. Every RR was unique.

Denis, when they were first rolled out for fleet use, the Navy didn't like them. I think it was a high landing speed and or some other issues. Anyway, they pawned them on the Marines, who loved them, but they were primarily land based on Guadalcanal and other early bases. Navy started to use them later in the war.

OK, like a lot of plastic kit building, there are multiple portions going on simultaneously. While I waited for the cement to set up on the side, I did a little work on the roof and ends. The supplied roof is for a 50 foot car, but this is a 40 foot car. I removed 3 panels in the middle, put the resulting roof sections on my Byrnes sander and trued the cut ends up. I also sanded off the raised portions of the roof nearest the end. These are the locations for the roof hatches. Removed roof section. I need to put it in the fixture to glue it up nice and straight. The sanded smooth location for the hatches. About 1966 or so, the railroads began removing roof mounted running boards from box cars and moving the brake wheels lower on the end. To add to the fun, the ends supplied are for a car with a high mounted brake wheel. So I have to plug all the little 0.010 holes with Evergreen styrene rod. White specks are the plugs. I'll mount the brake mechanism in the correct location later. Too early and I risk mangling the parts. And now I can start gluing the ribs to the HAT sections. Cleaned up the first side. Rib section in the assembly fixture. The yellowish section where the door will go is a bit of the paper the manufacturer used for the part layout. After the cement sets, I'll peel it off. Hope folks are enjoying this as much as I am building it.

Ah, a bent wing bird. Love 'em.

Denis & Craig, thanks for tagging along. Yeah, Denis, a lot of folks think it's a box car, but the hatches are the clue. Some roads in the Northeast and Midwest built similar cars to move grain. We still have covered hoppers moving grain and plastic pellets, but those cars are about 20 feet longer and 60% larger cubic capacity. Craig, talking to my southeastern RR buddies, Florida is ground zero for phosphate. NC has some mines, over towards Cape Hatteras.

Glad you're on here, Lou. It's a typical RR freight car with 2 colors, gray body and grungy brown/black underframe. Big change from the usual boxcar red body and grungy brown/black under-body. There are so many shades of gray. The weathering will be fun, since the phosphate sorta looks like cement. Dust around the hatches and doors dripping down the sides; maybe some lumps of the phosphate on the roof, near the loading hatches. I'm going to grit blast it with baking soda before I paint it. The trucks are made of acetal plastic and paint doesn't stick too well to bare engineering plastic, so we grit blast to give it some "tooth". The trucks will be the same color as the body. The grit blaster gun looks like something from Buck Rogers.

Well, folks, I have a car to show you some of the more modern model railroading construction methods. No resin, yet. May have some pieces later in the build. Right now it's styrene. This box car is actually a covered hopper. Some railroads in the US Southeast service phosphate mines. There are many uses in our daily lives, as dietary supplements, cleaning agents and other uses. You can see the hatch up on the roof, above the SEABOARD on the left end of the car. Some cars had 2 diagonally across the roof, some had 4, 2 on each end. This is a flat kit, meaning you have to build up the body from separate sides, ends, roof and underframe. Not quite like the old Athearn brand blue boxes of freight cars those of us of a certain age grew up with. This is one side of the car: From the top, there is a backing piece, with the series of holes, the side of the car, with some fine holes and the contours of the side, a HAT section and the rib section. Because these were laser cut, the maker used styrene covered with a sticky paper to lessen the laser burning. These will all go together in a layer cake fashion, with assembly done on a magnetic building board to ensure squareness. Cleanup of the styrene is tricky, because of the thinness of the HAT and rib sections. The second side is drying in the fixture, so I didn't take a picture, yet. The side piece with the fine holes for bolt details. You can see the shape of the bottom contours. The hat section and rib section. The braces on the outside of the car a called hat sections, due to the shape, with a thin but wide inner section and a square outer section. The laser cutting puts ridges on one side of the part. I found that if I sand the backside while it's all one sheet I'll do less damage to the hat and rib sections.

OC, nicely done. I feel you can see some details better in black and white.

Greg, this is the site I've been on: http://www.luft46.com/ Don't know if it's been updated lately, but it does have a lot of novel aircraft.

Greg, sounds like you've been looking at Luft '46 stuff; alternative Luftwaffe aircraft that mostly were just drawing board exercises. I'll be following this one.

Dave, there are Kevlar gloves available, too. I use one and since it's the "flexible holder", I have no dexterity issues. And it's not too heavy, either. Your first aid actions were spot on. I got a pretty good scratch from a highly incensed cat, years ago and my local ER glued the cut shut. I have a very fine line on my wrist to remind me not to get after a riled up pet.

There is an alcohol based stain from Hunterline, from Canada. Here is a link to their instructions and products: https://hunterline.com/p/weathering-instructions They have over 40 colors.

Yeah, it's a bird farm. Way cool. The only Langley models I know of are in resin.

Nice work on the Fleet, Craig. I had some older cousins who built those size airplanes. They thought I was a lesser modeler because I built plastic. Nowadays, I work most mediums, just no RC stuff. Unless I add in Digital Command Control (DCC) trains. That adds so much to the fun of running trains, especially if you're into sound ops.

Solvaset is pretty strong, since I think it was developed by Champ Decals back in the day. Champ decals were pretty thick, so strong was good. The newer decals we use don't need the strength to settle down. One tip if you get silvering under a decal it to let it dry completely, prick holes with a pin in the silvery area(s) and reapply some solution. Usually happens on wood boards on the lines between the boards, but it can happen on panel lines, too. As a last resort, slit the dry decal, but you risk seeing a line where you cut.

Denis, I'm not sure about gloss red. I'm sure red was applied to various handles and whatnot in the cab, but I suspect they got dirty pretty quick and took on that dull, oily look. The engine crew "oiled around" the loco every chance they got, to lubricate all the moving parts. Grabbing handles with oily gloves did the rest. Brass fittings would get a nice cleaning to enhance the "flash" in the cab and anywhere else on the engine. Number plates and mounting brackets were favorite shiny spots.

Pulling for you, OC. Like the guys said above, hate having a friend suffer. Thankfully, you seem to have it under control. I like following your work.

Denis, looking good. I like your pin striping, a very typical way of prettying up a loco in steam days. Passenger engines in those days got a lot of TLC, with flashy paint on the domes and a bit of an overall shine. A hard working freight engine would be pretty dusty/dirty, so more matte paint. And yes those chains would have hooks. Think of it like the safety chains around a trailer hitch with the link and pin coupling.

Denis, coming along nicely. Doing a great job. A few weathering tips for ya, too. Grease and oil would spill out of the journal box covers (the square looking things on the trucks) from the crew slopping lubricants into them to oil the bearings for the axles, so trickle some black and brown around them. The leaf springs should be a little rusted so appropriate dark reds and a little black grease. The steam dome will have some light colors from the water collecting below the steam pop valves. Dust from the area they traveled in would collect on the whole shebang, more so on the wheels.

Grilled veggies and a nice piece of beef. I'm in. The destroyer is turning out well, Greg. It is a dark camo scheme.

Current infrared (IR) missile technology is lightyears better than the 60's IR versions. F8 versus F16 would be fun for this FWS grad, but my money has to be on the Viper, even in a guns only "knifefight in a phonebooth". Unfortunately, the likelihood of a classic dogfight happening is rapidly shrinking.